So this little blog post and really, little is an understatement, will be separated by two topics. If you're interested in reading, maybe read the first part, take a break, make some dinner, and come back to the second. What I really wanted from this blog is the ability to just post all my frustrations -if I had any-, misgivings, surprises, personal growth moments, off-the-charts happiness levels, whatever. However, given my personality, I couldn't update this as much as I wanted to. To be fair to myself, I was never the type of girl to use a journal. I once bought a journal at Hot Topic to be the brooding, rocker chick type...but I wrote just one page, half of it blank. On the top scribbled as messily organized and as small as possible: I can't say too much, Nicole is sitting by me, and who knows what she would do with this knowledge. If anyone went to my high school, was in my biology or AP World History Class, you should know who Nicole is. Anyways, I think for most people writing in a journal is a cathartic moment, where all the stress or strong emotion can be poured from the tip of an ink pen onto a piece of paper, but for me I have other outlet sources. So yes, there you go, an apology for once again taking forever to write a single blog post! This weekend I will try (underline this readers, because blogger doesn't have an underline function!), try to add the blog post about my trip to London that happened last weekend. Okay, off to the two questions/topics I wanted to focus on.
First, let me introduce the clip that gave me the want to make a blog post about it.
Now, the Jungle Book, written by Rudyard Kipling, from what I've been told is the very representation of racism at its finest, and yeah you could draw parallels of prejudice and down right intolerance from the Disney adaptation of the book, but what makes the movie so enthralling and a classic is the level of maturity and sheer genius that is put into the film. The double entendres and hidden meaning behind phrases like "Yes, Go to sleep. Rest In Peace" is so morbid that it's hilarious, and this element of satisfying the average child as well as the average adult surely is lacking in the present Disney films. What happened to the subtlety! However, this blog wasn't meant as a movie review, so forgive me for my digression. No, why you see this clip is so that I can tell you that the following, top-rated comment for the video is: I get turned on by this, too, but I don't know why. I blame Japan and their tentacle porn.
Now, without thinking about Japan and their tentacle porn, what bothers me is that there is a large group of youtube users -and perhaps some that aren't registered with the site- that have thumbs this comment up. Alarming more, is that this seems more and more like a fetish rather than a trolling comment. Video responses to that particular video have involved video manipulations of Kaa (The python in the video above) strangling other disney female characters, and a lot of the reaction is...well, positive...in a sexualized way. Now, as a psychology major, fetishes are interesting in themselves, because by definition, they are objects, whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification; and has become an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression.
It could be that the individuals who find this as a turn on could just be seduced by the idea that Kaa represents a phallic symbol-due to serpents being historically conceived as representations of the male sexual organ in not just characteristics, but also in their relation to the tenacity of life, and regeneration. This makes sense if you focus on the victim, being strangled by this "snake". It could be considered slightly erotic in that perspective. And had it been a female, I would have thought that the user response was in relation to that representation and their fixation with their own penis. However! The victim in the video is Mowgli, an 11 or something year old boy, which makes me think there's another fetish in the work. It's called vorarephilia, which is the attraction/arousal to the idea of being eaten (swallowed), eating someone else, or simply observing the process. This is a lot more dangerous, in the sense that in order to be eaten or to eat someone else,someone would usually have to be dead. And, I'm not sure if this is a good fact or a fun one, but the number of people with this fetish has risen, yet luckily there are media outlets to release their gratification (i.e videos like this). So basically, yay for the majority of people with this fetish not killing people! I introduced this topic because I found it very interesting that not only could someone be so open to admit that they found this little Disney clip sexually stimulating, but also gain a small following! Is it definitely vorarephilia? Is it just phallic? I have no idea! However, critiquing and seeing responses on youtube (if you see the clip on the website, you might see my replies, ah!) definitely make me want to learn more about the psychological effects of fetishes.
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Okay, now that that's done, let's move onto topic number 2 which has nothing to do with Rudyard Kipling, Snakes, and fetishes. Or does it..... No, it definitely does not!
The topic is the role of friends in influencing behavior. As we learn in developmental psychology, particularly related to adolescence, peer relationships play a monumental role in identity formation and in the process of making decisions. Friends especially have more influence than peers in a teenager's decision to do positive behaviors -but more significantly- negative ones as well. For negative behaviors, this includes the pressure to try drugs, have sex, steal, etcetera, and the influence of friends is significantly higher than that of peers in general. That's probably why you've heard parents say, "Don't hang out with so and so, he's a bad influence!" Anyways, to prevent me from going off on a tangent, I'll just get to the point! No one has ever talked about the influential power of friends on the topic of dating and on crushes! I'm not afraid to say -mostly because this is my blog- that I asked that question on google and google scholar (psht, the library is for the 20th century). And what I got in return was just some website dedicated to black people loving this one white couple, which....hopefully was a joke between friends and not a real website... Sidenote: this website dedicated itself to saying that the majority of Black people hated White people, and yet this one couple, called Jill and Mike or something along those lines were accepted based off of some sort of cool, hip factor. Website can be found here: http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/ K . sidenote ended!
But yes, I'll admit that I'm not afraid, I ask google questions that I can't ask my group of friends for several reasons, mainly one being that they won't know the answers to said questions. I've reflected on this particular topic of friends being the source of developing feelings for someone else or even dating that person for years . Why? Mainly because that I'm the type of person that will convince myself that I like someone simply because my friends say so. Recently, I was told by a friend that I had feelings for someone who I've never had feelings for, and that turned the world that I was clinging to this week upside down. I started to think that maybe I did, and the feeling of dread came over me, forcing me to believe that what I had with this person could be totally destroyed if I give into these "feelings". I seeked for a few days for answers, and all I could think of, was ....maybe my friends are right, they know me, perhaps they know me more than myself? What if my subconscious knows and I'm too blind to see what is so obvious, obvious enough for my friends to see the hidden meaning? Luckily, I sat by a fellow psychology major, who is also a good friend, on my way to a class in the middle of effin' nowhere, and we discussed this topic. In her opinion, she said that the reliance (not to be confused with dependency) on someone can be confused for infatuation/crushing. Simply, that when you go to that one person for help, you're doing it, not because you like him/her, but that you know they'll give you the attention you need/deserve/want and that there is a certain reciprocity between you two. So, in the end, your trust in the person is just that, no hidden feelings. And when you laugh at someone's joke, it's not some high school musical, dawson's creek mimicry of flirtation, you just think that person is funny and accept their type of humor in a world that needs to laugh more. I'm not sure if that's the truth, but it sounds like a good answer and it relieved me of stress that I dont need anymore of. If you have hypothesis/ideas about this topic, let me know! I'd love to read them..
For next week, or at the end of the week, I'll tell you about the amazing bartender in London. He was so hilarious and cool, I wish he could be my friend haha!
Thanks for reading! I hope someone gives you cookies and ice cream :)
Here's just two videos that have nothing to do with this post. They're just dancing videos that gave me motivation to do what I love most: dance. Plus, they might let your brain relax after reading this huge post.
In the first video, the quality is very poor, due to the shooting being far away, however, the lead (male) ....yeah I met him, he taught us tango technique and he's quite possibly one of the most gorgeous men on the planet. Fun fact: me and a good dancing friend were speaking with accents for about an hour and a half, playing pool, the man in the video came up to us, with his squared shoulders, long, wavy dark hair, grey eyes, and a dazzling smile, saying, "Hello, ladies". We forgot all train of thought, forgot our game of creating accents, forgot the pool game-who was stripes? who was solids- giggled and swooned. I'm not the type of girl to just get all ditzy over some super model, yet I was nearly left a puddle of jelly after that interaction. No one needs to look and dance like that, he's a hazard to society. Back to the video: the falling and lifting of the follower-female- reminds me of life, with all of its pick-me-ups and let-me-downs.
Second video: is a video of Argentine Tango like the first, but this relies on speed, and although the dance is rigid, in the sense that the male lead has so much power over his follower, the focus is on her, and her manipulation makes her -and therefore, him- seductive. Look how fast they move!
Enjoy today and think about tomorrow another time!
A big thanks to Sinead for saying that she wanted to read this new update, especially since I wasn't sure anyone reads it. That, and thank you Maria Mena's Our Battles. This song really allowed me to type what I needed and wanted to say!
